


Sleepwalker

by seekingsquake



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), post Thor: Ragnarok
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-28
Updated: 2017-07-28
Packaged: 2018-12-08 05:30:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11639901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seekingsquake/pseuds/seekingsquake
Summary: It’s over. They’ve won. “What now?”Thor claps him on the back hard enough to send him forward a couple of steps. “What say you we check in on the Heroes of Midgard?”The last he remembers, none of them were feeling much like heroes at all. “They’re still playing at that?”Thor laughs. “My friend, look around! So are we!”Well. They did just stop The End of Everything. Guess Thor’s right.





	Sleepwalker

**Author's Note:**

> Written after finding out that at SDCC Mark said Bruce has been Hulked Out for two whole fcking years by the time we see him again in Ragnarok. This is mostly just me playing around with that a little bit.

He eats slowly. It’s a stew of some sort, and it’s hearty and meaty, and it feels familiar in his mouth even though _he’s_ never had it before. If he focuses hard enough, maybe he’ll remember. Maybe everything he went through will come back to him. Thor and Loki are chattering around him and that– **  
**

There are so many things that are disorienting about this situation. The last he remembers of Loki…

But Loki has more recent memories of him. At this point, Loki knows more about him than he knows about himself. When he looks up, Loki is looking right at him, and Thor has quieted down. “You really recall nothing?”

“Brother,” Thor rumbles. A warning.

Bruce presses his lips together before shrugging with a single shoulder and… it feels like his face is… smiling. “Did anything happen that I need to remember? All I did was kick ass as a gladiator or whatever, right?”

“You provided the Grandmaster with hours of entertainment,” Loki admits, eyes gleaming. “His favourite toy of all.”

“Brother!”

Bruce doesn’t remember, but he can picture it: thrown into a combat situation, enraged, falsely empowered, a man he means nothing to watching over him and deriving pleasure from seeing him destroy everything he touches. The idea of being a toy is not new to him. If Loki wants to see how far Bruce can be pushed, he will have to do a little better than that. “At least someone likes me.” He grins as if he doesn’t know that all of Loki’s grandstanding is because he feels like he has to be in control to compensate for the fact that he doesn’t have any friends and nobody aside from Thor really wants to be around him. As if he doesn’t know that Loki spends the vast majority of his time trying to cover his emotional tracks.

“Ah, it must be a relief to know that someone will miss you, since no one on Midgard does,” Loki jabs back. It shouldn’t hurt because _nobody misses you_ is the kind of thing he’s told himself since he was a kid, but it does a little. He wants to turn the hurt into something more resembling anger, but he’s more scared of Hulk now than ever before. Hulk, apparently, is the type to take a mile when given an inch. Bruce just got back. He’s not ready to go back under yet. So he just lets it hurt.

*

It’s over. They’ve won. “What now?”

Thor claps him on the back hard enough to send him forward a couple of steps. “What say you we check in on the Heroes of Midgard?”

The last he remembers, none of them were feeling much like heroes at all. “They’re still playing at that?”

Thor laughs. “My friend, look around! So are we!”

Well. They did just stop The End of Everything. Guess Thor’s right.

*

Everything’s really different. This new facility is bigger than the Tower ever was and far upstate and secluded. But it’s emptier. He’s seen Vision floating around, and he had a silent stare down with Rhodes in the kitchen, but he hasn’t seen anyone else. He’s taken to roaming the grounds on his own late into the evening and meeting with Thor early in the morning, and resolutely not interacting with FRIDAY.

Before, when he was out in the other Realms, trying to stop some sort of space apocalypse, it was easier to pretend that he hadn’t lost as much time as he had. But now he’s back on Earth, and it’s all too obvious.

Rhodes is walking around with a mechanical exoskeleton attached to his legs because Wilson shot him out of the sky at some point, for God’s sake.

He’s read all about the so called _Civil War_ amongst the Avengers a year ago. He’s figured out that even though Steve and… Romanoff… have gone underground, Tony’s still providing them with funds and equipment. He’s also bankrolling someone called Spider-Man, which. Okay. Betty’s still deep enough under that Bruce can’t track her, and Ross has been promoted from General to Secretary of State, so. The safest place for him is probably still off-world somewhere.

But Hulk was too comfortable out in Sakaar. Bruce’s skin prickles at the thought of losing any more time than necessary.

*

He wakes up in a cold sweat, scrambling for purchase. “JARVIS,” he croaks, disoriented, frightened, freezing.

The lights come up slowly, bringing him out of pitch blackness. A voice says, “Doctor Banner, it’s two am on Friday, December 22, 2017. Would you like a location reminder?” The voice isn’t JARVIS, but that’s reminder enough.

“I’m fine,” he manages. “How long was I sleeping?”

“Just a few hours. Should I start a pot of coffee for you?”

“No, FRIDAY. Thank you.” He gets up. Leaves the room he’s been put in and wanders the corridors. He stops when he hears voices in the kitchen.

“I just want to know what we’re working with, here.” Steve, for some reason. “No more surprises.”

“You’re one to talk about surprises, Captain Asshat.” Tony, obviously.

“Play nice, boys.” Romanoff.

“My friends,” Thor interrupts. “Brother Bruce and I have worked very well together just recently, and Hulk has grown much in his absence from you. You will all be vastly impressed! But I fear asking Bruce to just change forms on command for no dire reason is misguided. It seems that being in his Hulk form for longer stretches of time hasn’t improved his memory recall as we had once thought it might; he’s missing two years worth of time, and that cannot be anything but disconcerting.”

He doesn’t want to listen to these people discuss him like he’s some sort of science experiment, but he’s also not ready to face any of them, considering the way things were when he left and all the new tensions that have clearly formed while he was… abroad. So he stays standing just out of sight, his eyes closed against the roar that’s growing behind his brow.

“Boss,” FRIDAY alerts. “Doctor Banner is standing in the hall, and his vitals show signs of mild distress.”

Well. There goes just waiting it out. He turns and flees.

*

Hulk lets Bruce putter around the compound, because he’s not particularly keen on seeing Tin Man or Widow or Cap. But when Bruce starts dozing off, and Hulk spots the vast stretch of land just beyond the edge of the compound, he pushes. He pushes hard, and Bruce is too tired, too small, too uncertain to fend him off. Hulk is not uncertain. And Hulk is not tired. And Hulk is definitely not small. “THOR!” He bellows, and _everyone_ comes running, and he is powerful here.

Thor laughs. “Brother Hulk! What can I do for you, my friend?”

Hulk knows that Widow is watching from a window above and to the left. Hulk knows that Cap is watching from a doorway behind Hulk and to the right. Hulk sees Tin Man approaching slowly from the front, curious and cautious but not afraid. Hulk is still angry at all of them, but fighting them here is no fun. Not when outsiders will try to paint him as something terrible.

But Hulk thinks that fighting _Thor_ is fun, and Thor seems to think it’s fun too, so. That will do just fine. He hefts Thor up and throws him like a javelin into the field. Thor collides with the ground and skids quite a distance before popping up like one of those little whack-a-mole heads in arcades. He shouts, “I see how it is! Come, then! You will not best me this time!” It is a lie, but a fun lie, so Hulk roars and goes. Hulk can feel the eyes of the others on his back. When he was in the arena on Sakaar, he could feel hundreds of eyes on him, but it felt different. The eyes there were watching, happy, and Hulk basked in the warmth of their gazes. But these eyes prick at his skin like little bugs, making Hulk itch with irritation.

Hulk focuses on Thor. He does not pay attention to the little bug eyes on his skin, or the little bug voice inside his head, whining. Bruce had been quiet for so long back on Sakaar. Maybe if Hulk stays out long enough, Bruce will become quiet again.


End file.
